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January 04, 2008

Youtube now works out of the box using the mobile version (http://m.youtube.com) or the desktop version (follow link at bottom of m.youtube.com) with Pocket Internet Explorer. PIE launches the HTC Streaming Player. The desktop version which has access to all youtube videos launches TCPMP. Dutty's DualTouch v2 ROM includes the appropriate plug ins to make TCPMP work. Youtube on Windows Mobile does not match the iPhone's user experience, but the video quality is as good.

The amount of available program and storage memory. At boot time I have 61.2MB of program memory and with all my current applications installed in program memory I am currently at 88.3MB. No more daily boot as with my HTC Herald/T-Mobile Wing.

The GPS is very good. I used Windows Live Search and it works very well. I was able to speak the address. I wish it had voice direction. It would then be closing in on perfect.

The scroll wheel, I am still getting use to it.

The camera is a big improvement over my T-Mobile Wing/HTC Herald.

So far, what I don't like or have issues with (previous items italicized):

Issue when initiating certain calls, call connects but I can't be heard by and cannot hear my caller.

Slow boot time

T-Mobile US' lack of 3G. This is starting to become a real pain.

The main Kaiser thread on xda-developers can be found here. The WIKI can be found here.

January 02, 2008

Two weeks ago I received my unlocked AT&T Tilt (I use T-Mobile US). I have reconfigured the unit using a ROM I found on xda-developers. I am using a ROM built by Duttythroy. This ROM uses CE 5.2.1933 Build 18533 with DualTouch v2. It is quite outstanding.

In order to flash the AT&T Tilt you must first perform a CID unlock (link). You are then able to flash any ROM.

The xda-developer's thread for Dutty's DualTouch v2 ROM can be found here. I also updated the Radio ROM to 1.27.12.32 from 1.27.12.11. The radio ROMs can be found here. The process of updating the radio ROM is the same as the system ROM, however it does not clear your setting or installed programs like the OS ROM update. There seems to be some debate about version 1.27.12.32 and 1.27.12.17 with a good percentage of folks reverting back to .17. I will try .32 to see how well it works. I am having an issue with some calls connecting but I can't hear or be heard by the person I am calling. This happened with .11 and happened once with .32. In .11 I had to reboot, however .32 when the person called me back the problem seem to have resolved itself. We will have to see. I also installed some extra programs which were not included in the base ROM like Adobe Acrobat reader and the advanced configuration application. Dutty has various applications which can be found here.

After playing around with the HTC Home screen, I decided to revert back to the spb Mobile Shell. The Shell and PocketBreeze are more configurable and work better for me. Tomorrow I will update my list of current software.

So far, what I love about the Kaiser:

The amount of available program and storage memory. At boot time I have 61.2MB of program memory and with all my current applications installed in program memory I am currently at 88.3MB. No more daily boot as with my HTC Herald/T-Mobile Wing.

The GPS is very good. I used Windows Live Search and it works very well. I was able to speak the address. I wish it had voice direction. It would then be closing in on perfect.

The scroll wheel, I am still getting use to it.

The camera is a big improvement over my T-Mobile Wing/HTC Herald.

So far, what I don't like or have issues with:

Issue when initiating certain calls, call connects but I can't be heard by and cannot hear my caller.

Slow boot time

T-Mobile US' lack of 3G. This is starting to become a real pain.

I can't say enough good things about the people on the xda-developers forum, without them the Windows Mobile experience would be substandard. The main Kaiser thread on xda-developers can be found here. The WIKI can be found here.

November 29, 2007

Update 11/30/07: After using the new version of Google Maps yesterday, here are my thoughts. This is a nice feature but currently it is not very usable unless you are driving along roads like interstate highway where cell towers are placed along the side of the road. Driving from point a to b on an interstate highway gives you pretty good location accuracy, however once you drive into a neighborhood the location information is not very accurate and I find it less than useful. Hopefully Google can tweak their calculation to make this feature more usefull.

Google just released a new version of Google Maps for Windows Mobile (download link) which includes an interesting beta feature that attempts to determine your location based on the cell tower you are connected to and your signal strength.

The feature worked with my T-Mobile Wing, however I could not get it to work with the Verizon i760 ("your location is temporarily unavailable"). On the T-Mobile Wing, it told me that my location was within 1700 meters from the tower. Unfortunately it did not give any indication of direction from the tower. Right now the beta feature does not seem to useful, however I think it has potential if they can figure out direction from the tower. I will be trying it in different locations today and will report back.

August 30, 2007

HTC officially released the TyTN II (Kaiser) in Europe on Tuesday (link). Orange, T-Mobile, Telefonica Group and Vodafone will be offering the device in September. The specs on this phone are quite incredible and include:

256MB ROM

128MB RAM

Quad band GSM

Tri band UMTS (should be compatible with T-Mobile USA 3G network)

GPS

3 Mega Pixel camera

Unfortunately this all comes with a hefty price tag of $799.95 (US pre-orders at mobileplanet). In the US, we have gotten so used to cellular carriers subsidizing our phone purchases that the price tag is tough to swallow especially for T-Mobile USA users who have no idea when their 3G network will be up and running. I guess I will be waiting some more before I get my hands on this device...

July 13, 2007

Microsoft has just released version 2.x of Windows Live Search (WLS) for Windows Mobile. The two major features that were added to WLS 2.x are the addition of movie data by AMG and a larger map cache which can be configured up to 128MB. The cached should allow the storage of a good bit of map data speeding up the map motion as you travel from point A to B.

If you already have WLS installed you can update it directly from the application.

WLS must connect to the Internet before this message appears. This may take 30 seconds, but it makes the upgrade process mindless.

The upgrade process will un-install the previous version and install the version 2.x. I installed version 2.x on my Storage card.

Version 2.0.2739.29907 installed. I set the cache to 128MB.

I am planning to write a side by side comparison of WLS and Google Maps Mobile for pocketnow.com. I plan on performing 3 or 4 tasks using both. Even though I like WLS, this will be an interesting exercise since I have no preconceived notion of which one will come out on top.

February 26, 2007

I have been travelling this weekend with only my T-Mobile MDA and assorted accessories. It seems that more and more companies are building web sites that can easily be viewed on a mobile browser. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Wall Street Journal now has a mobile site. They had one many years ago and dropped it. Later a subscription based site was available only for Blackberry's. Being an avid reader of the Journal I was happy to find out that their web developers understand how to determine which browser is accessing their site and format the output appropriately. All you need to remember is http://www.wsj.com regardless of the browser you are using. Too many companies have resorted to different url schemes like http://mobile.washingtonpost.com or http://wireless.schwab.com or even worse totally different domain name like United Airlines http://uaflightlookup.com. I love all of these sites formatted for mobile browsers but it all the different url syntax make it confusing. Now we even have .mobi suffix for mobile sites. It is all pretty sad considering the technology is available to determine the type of browser that sent the request. As users we need one standardized way to access mobile sites. I am not a big fan of .mobi but if that works it is fine with me, just make it easy to remember. I applaud sites like the Wall Street Journal for helping lead the way, even though I know the Windows Mobile project team has been trumpeting this capability for a long time.

I have been reviewing GPS units lately and found an interesting capability in MultIE, the Pocket Explorer front end I use. It has a feature that allows you to use your location coordinates in a web search. One of the many inputs web based Google Maps accepts is the longitute and latitude. MultIE reads the coordinates from the com port associated with a GPS unit and places them on the google web page. The one problem I found was that the com port was set to COM6 however the com port I use for my Transystem i-Blue 737 is COM7. I could not find a place in options to set the com port so I had to resort to editing the registry with Total Commander. The registry key is \HKCU\Software\MultiIE\GPSPort, the value is the literal "COMX:", for my configuration it is "COM7:".

Finding little features like this, makes technology fun.

This week I am working:

A review of SPB Software Brain Evolution software

I had to replace my battery on my APC Smart UPS, however I am still having problems with the calibration.

February 23, 2007

Brandon over at pocketnow.com has a youtubevideo link to a review from mobilitytoday of the Beta version of Window Live Search (WLS). WLS has now been officially released by Microsoft at wls.live.com.

I used WLS in my upcoming pocketnow.com review (to be published on Monday) of the Transystem, Inc. i-Blue 737 Bluetooth GPS unit. If you are in the market for Bluetooth GPS, I would take a hard look at this unit. Its reception sensitivity is very impressive and at $69.95 on amazon.com tough to beat.

In the next couple of weeks I plan to put WLS, Google Mobile Maps, and maybe Nokia's Smart2Go in a head to head comparison on my T-Mobile MDA. For now WLS is what I use on a day to day basis, but the comparison could change my mind...

January 22, 2007

I am travelling this week and my blogging will be limited. I am only travelling with my MDA, iGo Sierra Bluetooth keyboard, iPod, Sony W70 camera and an assortment of GPS receivers (I will talk about those later). I only brought two chargers with me, the Gomadic dual charger I reviewed on pocketnow.com and the Sony battery charger (argh!!, why can't they figure out a way to charge the camera's battery internally). The Gomadic charger is great, it charges everything else. I am also using the iGo Sierra keyboard on my lap using the information binder found in every hotel room. As I mentioned in my review of the keyboard the fact that the PDA holder is separate from the keyboard makes it hard to use it on ones lap, however using the binder enables you to type on your lap, although the keyboard does feel a little springy but definitely usable.
My MDA's battery started dying on me just before we left, so I am hobbling along making sure I plug it in every opportunity I get. Less than year, not too good (it is already down to 54% and I am just writing). I will have to look at 3rd party batteries when I get back to see if anyone has come out with a higher capacity battery in the same form factor.
I brought along 3 GPS receivers, my old Pharos iGPS-360 with the Bluetooth sled, the new Transystem - iBlue-737 GPS Bluetooth receiver I am reviewing and the new Spectec SDIO GPS I am also reviewing. So far I am very impressed by how fast the Transystem - iBlue-737 GPS receiver acquires the signal. It is too bad the Spectec is no mini SDIO to fit in my MDA. I am using my wife's Dell Axim X51v and will borrow a Treo 700w to perform some tests with the Windows Mobile Live Search application. The Spectec SDIO GPS is very small and has a micro SD slot which is a great design feature to store maps.
This week:
* I will continue writing about my Vista upgrade experience and getting iTunes 7.02 working.
* My review of Sunnysoft's Pocket Backup 4.0 should appear on pocketnow.com.
* I will be working on the upcoming SBSH Pocket Breeze 5.2 release.
* I will be working on my GPS receiver reviews.
* And hopefully will have enough time to blog...
I am using Word Mobile (larger entry area and spell checking) and PocketSharp MT to post...

January 09, 2007

There are three connectors on the BMW navigation computer, Two are for I-Bus connectivity and one for the GPS antenna. Since the navigation computer is activated by any door opening and the swap needs to be done when the unit is asleep there are two ways to exchange the systems. Disconnect the battery or wait, with the rear hatch open, for 15-20 minutes until the navigation computer powers down. I chose the second method, the swap went as planned and the BMW MKIV DVD navigation computer booted successfully.

However the swap is not fully plug and play. From an electrical and connectivity standpoint it is, however from a software standpoint additional configuration needs to be performed. I found that the navigation computer was configured (in BMW terms "coded) for German. I was able to switch the language to British but found that this is different from US English. There are two major modes in the configuration; one is US, the other is Euro. The navigation computer I received is in Euro mode and the only way to get
into US mode is to take it to the dealer or use a PC to I-Bus interface (link describing the process). Some of differences between the US English and British configuration is the use of feet vs yards and the voice/vocabulary used for navigation/voice commands. Everyone seems to like the British voice better, however the feet vs yard display is not universally liked by US drivers. I like feet better
so the next major step in this process for me will be to code/configure the unit for US mode using the information from the X5World forum.

Interestingly the car's electronic configuration data does not seem to propagate across devices immediately. When I first drove the car, even though I had changed the language setting to British, the Bluetooth telephone display had some German labels. After about 30 minutes of driving, all the different screens seem to be updated correctly. The same effect occurred with the GPS' positioning, it took about 15 minutes before the car's position on the map was accurate. I am still having some connection issues
with Bluetooth which I did not have before. It could be because of the Euro coding or I may have to re-pair my T-Mobile MDA.

I also decided to upgrade the MKIV navigation computer to the latest firmware available which is 4/1-80. I received the unit with 4/1-71. Again using the information on X5World found here, the process was painless.

Yesterday, I received the latest US 2007.1 DVD maps from Navteq (I was using my old maps on CD). The DVD contains the entire country, much more map detail and has more information about sites, restaurants and the likes.

A major new feature in the map display, on the MKIV navigation computer, is called perspective mode. This is the ability to view the maps at a 3D angle with the horizon in the background, however to turn this feature on you have to go into a hidden menu (very bizarre). I had trouble getting to the hidden menu but with the help of members on the X5World forum, I managed to access it yesterday. It looks very nice although, I am not sure how useful it is for driving. It was probably added for marketing
purposes to match what Lexus and Honda have.

So far I am very happy with my upgrade. Here are the items I found so far that have made the upgrade worthwhile:

Much faster map display.

Related location Information contains phone number which can be automatically dialed from the navigation screen.

Map views can scale to 500 miles (in US mode you can go to 1000).

When you set the map heading to match the vehicle heading the map turns as you turn. On the MKIII, the map would redisplay. It takes a little time to get use to it but it is much smoother.

January 04, 2007

I recently decided to upgrade from a CD based MKIII GPS computer in my 2002 BMW to a DVD based MKIV GPS computer for everal reasons:

Having to switch CDs when driving south from Washington, DC into North Carolina or west in Pittsburgh, PA.

Faster processing speed of DVD based GPS computer.

Better graphics.

More information on maps.

BMW is continuing to upgrade the software for the DVD based computer while the last update for the CD based DVD computer was released at least 3 years ago. I am afraid Navtech will also stop updating the maps. The current release for CD maps is 2006.2 while the DVD maps is 2007.1.

Possibility of adding integrated Sirius satellite receiver with the purchase of a new radio.

From my research which was mostly done on X5 world (great source of BMW and X5 information), everyone on the forum views this as a plug and play replacement. The problem in the US is that you can only purchase a new navigation computer from a dealer. The retail price is around $2500. When you return your old navigation computer the price drops to around $1800 with various discounts. The cost is really not justifiable, I don't quite understand why BMW makes it so price prohibitive
to upgrade. You can however purchase a used one in Europe via eBay. I found one and purchased it for about $800 from a seller which seems reputable, naviandbmwparts. I received it yesterday, installed it and will report back shortly on my experience.